Times-Picayune archiveNew Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas, right, and District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro at a news conference in November 2009.

During the second half of 2010, the New Orleans Police Department continued its downward trend in arrests for minor offenses, although officers still booked thousands of people who could have been issued a summons instead. Meanwhile, the report said the district attorney's office in 2009 achieved its highest felony conviction rate in a decade but was still well bellow the national average.

The crime commission has been pushing police to focus on serious crime for years. The latest report found that total arrests dropped 21 percent in the second half of 2010 compared to the first six months of the year, and a drop in arrests for minor offenses accounted for much of the change. That reflects Superintendent Ronal Serpas' focus on more effective arrests, and he deserves credit for the progress.

But minor offenses still accounted for 40 percent of all arrests, so police are still wasting too many resources detaining people for small transgressions. For example, police arrested more than 6,500 people on out-of-parish warrants issued for failure to pay traffic tickets or other minor infractions. The crime commission has highlighted this problem with out-of-parish warrants for five years now, and it's time for the Police Department to stop spinning its wheels. As crime commission President Rafael Goyeneche said, New Orleanians "will never see improvements" in controlling serious crime "if so much of the resources are devoted to misdemeanors."

The report also noted progress and challenges in felony convictions. It found that District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office won convictions in 42 percent of the felony arrests made in 2009 -- a much higher rate than his predecessors achieved in the decade the crime commission has tracked the statistic. Mr. Cannizzaro, who promised to focus on felonies and violent crime when he came into office, deserves credit for significantly improving the performance of the office in a relatively short time.

But the district attorney's office still is well below average. According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, the national felony conviction rate averages 56 percent. That means prosecutors in New Orleans have plenty of room for improvement.

Mr. Goyeneche attributed much of the recent improvement to cooperation between police and the DA's office, and that's a testament to good leadership on this issue by Mr. Cannizzaro and Superintendent Serpas. New Orleanians need to see them continue to improve their agencies, focusing more on serious offenders and less on the small stuff.